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Students test driving skills

Local students learned lessons more valuable than winning at a competition, organizers say.

By TRAVIS LAU

Posted:
04/23/2013 09:12:53 PM EDT

Dean Riland, left, of the Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association, goes over the details of the course with students before they begin driving during Tuesday s contest. (THE EVENING SUN CLARE BECKER)

Gettysburg Area High School junior Paige Szarowski peeks at the interior of the car she will be driving in the 22nd Annual York/Adams Safe Driving Competition for Youth. The competition, held Tuesday at South Western High School, attracted students from 18 area high schools. (THE EVENING SUN CLARE BECKER)

The sedan barely slowed as Jake Parrott breezed through a serpentine of traffic cones.

But many who followed him Tuesday on the school parking lot turned driver-safety course would complete the task with less ease.

Even a handful of the driving instructors who faced off in a competition of their own had to brake and back up before navigating the turns.

For Jake, maybe it's no surprise, considering the South Western High School senior holds his junior pilot's license, and learned to fly a plane before he learned to drive.

And while Jake drove well, and was able to identify safety hazards on a parked car including a mismatched lugnut on each of the wheels, his performance still came up shy of a top finish in the 22nd Annual York/Adams Safe Driving Competition for Youth.

But, when it comes to this particular competition, there's something more important than winning it, said Bryan Sellers, the chairman of the York Area Highway Safety Advisory Council and one of the contest's organizers.

“This is life-saving stuff here,” Sellers said.

Organizers of the competition, which on Tuesday brought students from 18 area schools to a parking lot behind South Western High School, hope it makes a positive impact not only on the students who competed, but on their friends, as well.

Sellers said by celebrating the safest drivers among students, their peers might mirror behaviors such as wearing seatbelts and refraining from texting while driving.

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“People, hopefully, will follow what they do,” he said.

During the students' tests in driving perception, an exercise where they looked at 15 photos of street scenes for 10 seconds each, then were asked true-or-false questions about the photos, instructor Wayne Harper told students they'd be the center of attention when they return to their schools.

“Everybody's going to be watching you when you get back,” said Harper, the director of the York-based Center for Traffic Safety. “They're'going to be asking if you're really as good as they say you are.

Southwestern Regional Police Officer Brandy Goodling watches Dover Area High School junior Nicole Smith as she navigates the first section of the driving course Tuesday morning. (THE EVENING SUN CLARE BECKER)

“Show them you are,” he said.

The competition, itself, is a model that's been followed many times, Sellers said.

The statewide competition to which the top finishers advance spawned from a growing number of county competitions that were inspired by this one, he said.

On Tuesday, representatives from the Philadelphia area were on hand to observe the contest and consider how they might start something similar.

Gettysburg Area High School junior Paige Szarowski said the course was more nerve-wracking than she anticipated.

After navigating the serpentine, trying to align her rear bumper with a marker and parallel parking, she pulled up to the last station, which measured the distance from the front bumper to a marker on the ground in front of the vehicle. She stopped well short — too far to score any points.

“I wanted to be safe, I guess I was a little too safe,” she said, walking away from the vehicle.

Paige fared better in the written portion of the competition, sharing second-place honors in the category with Parrott, Connor Smith of Gettysburg and Samantha Christine of Northeastern.

Beyond the serpentine, there were a few other interesting twists to this year's competition.

The York Catholic team, for instance, was made up of triplets Anne, Patrick and Tim Hartinger, all seniors at the school. And for the first time in the competition's 22 years, a competitor — Emma Gingrich of Northern High School — earned a perfect score on the written portion of the contest.

Individual first-place honors, and a $2,500 scholarship, went to Bethany Spencer of York Suburban.

“There was a day when Suburban didn't come to this competition,” Harper said after presenting the prize. “Way to go.”

And while Northeastern High School continued its dominance of the team competition — winning for the 13th time in 15 years — two Hanover-area schools finished second and third.

The South Western team of Parrott, Devon Ackerman and Amy Spigelmyer took second place, while the team from Hanover High School, comprised of Linsey Bowersox, Spenser Durika and Lynne Eisenberg took third.

Hanover driving instructor Kevin Krupinski said he was happy with the showing.

In his 10 years of being involved with the competition, the school had tallied just one other third-place finish.

While the finish might be one for Hanover to savor, Krupinski said it wasn't the result of countless hours of prepping for the contest.

He said that, just ahead of the competition, he might have spent an hour going over with students the things they might encounter.

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